Attracted To Things Uncertain: The Most Significant Albums Of 2001, Part One

In the autumn of 2001, occasional Trent Reznor collaborator Chris Vrenna released an album under his Tweaker moniker; an intelligent, restrained slice of melodic, melancholic, and mostly instrumental synth-pop, smuggled out in the dead of night under the name The Attraction To All Things Uncertain. It’s a record I was highly smitten with at the time – particularly opener ‘Linoleum’, with its exotic panache; a minor key lament with David Sylvian on vocal duties – but even more than that, it’s the title itself that feels particularly pertinent in any revisit to the year’s significant releases. An attraction to all things uncertain; it was a strange twelve months – even allowing for the process of disassociation required for penning these words; detaching the discs themselves from my thought patterns of that period (far too much of it spent drunk in a hidey-hole off La Cienega Boulevard, the come-down cadences of Depeche Mode’s Exciter LP trickling from the rented stereo into another LA evening).

Here’s what the music press has filed under album of 2001:

Eye Weekly / NME

The Strokes – Is This It

The Face

The Avalanches – Since I Left You

Kerrang

Tool – Lateralus

Les Inrockuptibles

Röyksopp – Melody A.M.

Mojo

Super Fury Animals – Rings Around The World

Q

Travis – The Invisible Band

Rolling Stone / Village Voice

Bob Dylan – Love And Theft

Spin

System Of A Down – Toxicity

The Wire

Bjork – Vespertine

Of the above, there’s one or two that are engaging listens. One or two that exemplify humanity’s love for the bland. And one in particular that represents the triumph of hype over substance; I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating – should you like your guitar pop full of new-wave retro angularity, Wolf Songs For Lambs by Jonathan Fire*Eater is a much superior album to Is This It. Only, it was released in 1997, and fickle vogue was flirting in the opposite direction at the time.

The most interesting aspect of the Strokes LPis its relationship with censorship – the North American release purged of both its cover (too much female flesh for puritanical tastes) and the track ‘New York City Cops’ (cultural attitudes to anything New York-related having shifted dramatically after a certain September morning in this year). That Is This It is interesting for what it lacks kind of undermines any elevation to Significant Album status. Best look elsewhere, I’m guessing.

Let It Come Down is a difficult proposition. It’s ambitious, expansive, Spiritualized as widescreen, with full choir, with full orchestra – and there-in lies the problem; by beefing up the sound and dismissing all the bleeps and buzzes, those tendrils of intimacy spanning record and listener are severed. Not entirely – this is a J Spaceman record, after all, and therefore imbued with a sense of the majestic. Opener ‘On Fire’ has a sleazy undertone that’s most pleasing; the revisit to ‘Lord Can You Hear Me’ – first recorded by Spaceman 3 – is full of nuance missing from the original. Yet as a coherent unit, Let It Come Down has a weighty, slow-footed feel, devoid of that sense of danger integral to the first three Spiritualized long players. If anything, it feels safe – explicitly not what I want from a Spiritualized album.

In fact, if 2001 was enthusiastic for anything, it was for difficult propositions. Attractions to all things uncertain. Amnesiac was the moment I ceased truly caring about Radiohead. Music that’s precisely calibrated to the detriment of any soul; another step into the tundra’s frozen night. A much more successful album is Drukqs by Aphex Twin; Like Radiohead, Richard James may slant towards the difficult – a reputation for broadcasting to the world just how fucking clever he is – and to a degree this attitude is present in Drukqs. Yet much more of this is about texture. Electronica as a sly exploration of equilibrium, James coating his sharp understanding of musical theory with false reflections, with sonic reference points all bruised and vulnerable. The really gripping aspect: in the midst of all these dark ledges with precarious drops should you put a foot wrong, the pace is expertly shaped by the deployment of delicate, stripped-back piano pieces. It’s a technique that adds to the vague sheen of menace that’s present; the type of record where there’s a surprise around every corner – this is the one Aphex Twin LP I’ll be taking with me on my forthcoming trip to the underworld.

Finally for part one (worry not; your favourite record of 2001 will be featured in the second part, unless it’s the Gorillaz album), and with origins in the revolving cast list of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, B.R.M.C. – the début Black Rebel Motorcycle Club album. This is a deceptive disc; it has all the trappings of being just another tranche of Californian stoner-rock. And whilst the influences are not squirrelled away out of sight (the production is also a little too slick for my tastes), what’s always struck me is the depth inherent in every single track. Layers of fuggy buzz, psychedelic in inclination yet rippling with melodic intent and sleazy apparel. The guitar sound is sourced directly from 1968 , yet this doesn’t feel retro for retro’s sake, the energy behind each stanza tightly framed. Highlight – album closer ‘Salvation’; a delicate change of pace, alluring vocal harmonies, and a momentum that builds in engrossing patterns. Uplifting, yet with a dark shadow – sounds like Spacemen 3 covering a Revolver-era Beatles track – if, that is, Spacemen 3 came from San Francisco, and not Rugby.

Tweaker / Linoleum

Spiritualized / On Fire

Aphex Twin / Avril 14th

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Salvation

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

Published by

lazerguidedmelody

This was once an attempt to write of the socio-political constructs within modern culture. Instead it's become a music blog, and I'm usually drunk when I write it. Ho-hum.
View all posts by lazerguidedmelody

5 thoughts on “Attracted To Things Uncertain: The Most Significant Albums Of 2001, Part One”

2001 felt like a bit of a downer for me musically. And I agree that Let it come down was not Spaceman’s finest hour but also not his worst. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to that debut BRMC album. Perhaps its time for a revisit.

‘Linoleum’ is utterly fab… One of my fave “Sylvian” songs even if he’s only the vocalist on that particular track. As good as that one he did with Fennesz… ‘Transit.’
I also like ‘Drukqs’ … Even have a rather nifty carboard ad display thingie for it that I picked up in record store while no one was watching… As for the rest of the dross in that ‘Music Press’ list… Wonder if i even have ‘Let it Come Down’? Will have to check. Found a double CD single (Electricity?) by the band the other day (in an immaculate, white, card slipcase) the other day while rummaging through a box looking for an elusive Mats Gustafsson album.